Oct 27 2008
Figuring out ski vacation rentals: Budget (part I)
So you made an important decision – you are going to ski! So you picked the mountain, rounded up friends and marked you calendar. You might be already excited and envision a great ski trip, romantic snowfall, inviting fireplace, soothing spa and couple, or more, rounds of drinks with a group of friends. Great! Accept my sincere congratulations, take a seat and envision yourself finding that perfect lodging first. And you can trust me; it is not as nearly romantic after you stare at a computer and Google houses for good three hours.
Now, if you are floating in cash and don’t care whether a rent is $250 or $2500 per night, then you might skip the rest of this article. However, if you belong to the category of less fortunate citizens, and are on a budget, picking a place to stay will be time consuming and might be somewhat disappointing experience. Being on a budget does not precludes you from great skiing experience but it means that you need to be a little bit flexible, creative and compromising.
Why? Because after you Google your first 30 or so houses, a myriad of unexpected issues will pop up. All of sudden, you realize that your friend Jane doesn’t like Victorian style, Mike wants to stay slopeside, Joe needs sauna and Jessica can’t miss an episode of “desperate wives” no matter what. So you scramble to find “one-size-fits-all” type of deal and come to recognize that it is not easy to do. And so you keep searching, sending out emails, making phone calls and with every hour that you spend doing it, your envisioned vacation starts fading away. Chances are that this hypothetical situation is a real possibility and this is why we decided to put together a series of articles that hopefully will make this whole experience less stressful. And we are going to start with a very basic but the most important step – figuring out a budget.
BUDGET
To figure out a budget, you don’t need to be a CFO or CPA. However, there are couple important points to keep in mind. In Vermont, an average price per night might go anywhere from $100 to well above $1000 per night. It depends on a whether it is a condo or private house, location, number of bedrooms, amenities, holiday vs non-holiday time periods, weekend vs weekday. An impact of these variables might be intuitive, but you will be surprised how many people, especially beginners, underestimate their budget by booking a vacation during the Christmas week. (Sure it is fun but nothing can beat a midweek or non-holiday skiing/riding in my opinion)
Looking at per night rates does not provide full picture. Be prepared to provide a security deposit and this amount can range from 25% to 100% of your total rent or whatever. Sometimes it might take an owner or real estate agent managing a property two-three weeks to send back your security deposit so you should be aware that sometimes significant amount of cash might get tied up for some time. (In one instance we didn’t receive back a security deposit at all.)
If you have a large group or just like having fun, then it is probably that you might leave some mess once you vacate a property. And, this is why house owners will charge a cleaning fee that could be $75+ per visit. Not a big deal? More often than not, owners state the final amount will depend on how messy the house is after a wild party of yours. So, don’t be surprised if instead of $75 you will end up shelling out $200. (we happened to negotiate and cut a cleaning fee one time)
So before you enthusiastically exclaim ‘hoorah” and email friends your fancy spreadsheet with a budget breakdown, apply the following formula to all houses that you find appealing:
Total budget = per night rent*number of day + security deposit + cleaning fee/or any other charges. So if your per night rate is 250, length of stay 4 days, security deposit 50% and cleaning fee is $200, your total expenses will be $1700.
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